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Anabasis aphylla
Leafless Anabasis is a many-branched desert subshrub from Central Asia and the Caspian region, grown mainly to stabilize sand and catch blowing soil. It needs full sun, very little water and well-drained sandy ground.
Anabasis aphylla is a species of flowering plant in the family Amaranthaceae, native to the region surrounding the Caspian Sea, Central Asia, and Xinjiang and western Gansu provinces of China. A many-branched shrub usually found growing in alluvial fans and dune swales, it is sometimes planted to catch blowing soil and stabilize sand dunes. The alkaloid anabasine was named for this toxic species, from which it was first isolated by Orechoff and Menschikoff in the year 1931. Anabasine was widely used as an insecticide in the former Soviet Union until 1970.
Anabaseine and anabasamine are other alkaloids found to exist in the plant.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Anabasis aphylla by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
